"An advantage in life has the one who tackles a problem where others start talking first."

(John F. Kennedy)

AeroLas’ innovative air bearing technology

AeroLas’ innovative air bearing technology consists of both the basic technology itself as well as the implementation of this technology. The advantages of this technology are significant.

The basic technology with laser-drilled micro nozzles physically allows the most efficient air bearing. This makes our air bearings unique in their capabilities (load capacity, stiffness, damping, etc.). We guarantee low operation costs through an optimized air consumption. Exact simulated nozzle diameters, their locations and arrangement allow a perfect adjustment of the static and dynamic air bearing behaviors for each application.

As for their application, our air bearings offer opportunities never seen before with conventional air bearings. Examples are: linear drives with accelerations of more than 1,000 m/s² (100 g), or impact drives with even more than 100,000 m/s² (10,000 g) due to high damping in combination with dynamic stiffness; sub-nanometer movements due to lowest noise-induced error; seal-free transmission of gas or vacuum for rotary and linear drives via the gap due to guided air supply.

Instead of large nozzles, AeroLas’ air bearings with lots of micro nozzles avoid dynamically disadvantageous dead volume. Dead volumes refers to all cavities in which air can not be compressed during decrease of the air gap. They appear as weak gas springs stimulating vibration. Dead volumes refer in particular to chambers and canals existing in conventional air bearings in order to distribute the air and increase the compressed pressure within the gap. The cavities inside of porous (sintered) air bearings are also attributed to dead volume.

sectional view through a cylindrical air bearing

AeroLas achieves an effective, nearly perfect pressure distribution within the air gap by a large number of micro nozzles. Their typical diameter is between 0.02 mm and 0.06 mm. The narrowest cross-section of these nozzles lies exactly at the bearing’s surface. Thereby our technology avoid a dead volume not only in the supporting air bearing’s surface but also within the area of the air supplying nozzles.

laser drilling (sectional view through a flat aur bearing)

We drill the micro nozzles automatically with a laser beam in top-quality and repeatability. The physical behaviors of our air bearings prove to have a low variation for large as well as for small production volumes. With this technique our air bearings require, other than conventional air bearings, no manual, costly manufacturing.

At AeroLas, our team calculates the number, geometry and arrangement of micro nozzles based on well-founded theories (physical models) and simulation software. This allows a perfect adjustment of air bearings to the customer’s needs.

In the following, we show you the advantages of the air bearing technology of AeroLas. Some of them, such as the high flexibility, the excellent static and dynamic properties in combination, and a low noise excitation, prove to be a unique selling proposition among all other air bearings:

efficient use of the air cushion (close to the physical limit) through an uniform pressure within the whole gap;

perfect combination of static and dynamic properties;

highest-possible flexibility of the air bearing properties: with a particular gap height, AeroLas is able to optimize the air bearing such that it has for example a maximum load, stiffness, tilt stiffness, damping, or a minimum air consumption (respectively also in combination with others);

multi-approved highest precision of all air bearings, e.g. in the measurement technology due to slightest movements (<< 2 nanometer) through physical, lowest-possible self-excited vibrations;

considerably higher tilt stiffness than conventional air bearings such that the air within the gap flows through canals from the loaded to the unloaded areas away;

vibration-free within the entire operating range even with high air supply (in accordance even much more than 10 bar are possible);

highest reliability due to the large number of nozzles: clogging of nozzles by particles is out of question (nary failure in operation) because their diameter is much higher than gap height;

possibility to adjust bearing properties to deformation and tolerances of bearing and opposite surface;